Barrichello: Austria was one of my best races.

Rubens Barrichello may not have been very happy after Sunday's Austrian GP but here he reflects on the race, his relationship with Jean Todt and Ross Brawn and the teams radio!

"Austria was one of my best races, because I made a good tyre choice for the beginning of the race," explained Rubens. "But at that point I had a heavy fuel load and the two Williams' and Michael (Schumacher) were ahead of me. In the early stages, I was quicker than Michael, but could not get by and that meant I did not make the best use of my tyres. Then, around the 46th lap my tyres were no longer at their best and I was concentrating on keeping the car on the track, while going fast as well. In the end, (David) Coulthard made a later pit stop and managed to keep his lead, which is how I lost the race."

Barrichello is philosophical about the final result. "Being a professional in F1, I learnt from the start of my career that yesterday is the past and you just have to keep on going forward," he claimed. "Of course, I was unhappy to be asked to move over. The one thing that makes my life difficult at Ferrari is nothing to do with the team structure or team orders, it is just the simple fact that Michael is a good driver. He has been with the team for six years and is probably one of the best drivers there has ever been in Formula 1. I am doing alright, but it is difficult to beat someone who has been with the team for a very long period."

The race in Zeltweg has not affected Barrichello's morale. "I am not at all demotivated by what happened," he said. "I am determined to do as well as possible in the next race. In fact, I am more motivated to do even better. It might be difficult for people to judge my performance, even if from time to time they can see how good I am. I feel I am very close to Michael's times and I am very consistent in the races."

His relationship with the team is also unchanged. "After the race we talked and we had different opinions and everyone is entitled to have their own opinion," was Rubens' view of his meeting with Jean Todt and Ross Brawn. "That does not mean I do not get on well with Jean and Ross. Working with Ferrari is great and we even managed to have a little joke about the last race, when we had our Sunday night de-brief with Michael and all the engineers. Going down the check list of every aspect of the car, I was asked how the radio worked. I replied: "too good!" In the race I never considered pretending I couldn't hear the request to move over, because the Ferrari radio works too well!"